denver, burbs, rural, surrounding areas - let me get this straight (Colorado Springs: sale, lease)

[vegaspilgrim]

San diego county is not wall-to-wall solid city, it's very spread out over hills, mesas, and canyons. Denver, in comparison to San Diego, is very flat and packed in/ gridded out. Compared to Phoenix, which is complete gridded-out wall to wall concrete, Denver has a lot more open space, trails, creeks, and reservoirs interspersed throughout the metro area. But I'd say overall, Denver is more like Phoenix than San Diego. The eastern plains are 100% rural and sparsely populated, but there's no wilderness; it's all fenced in agricultural/rangeland property with the exception of pockets like the Pawnee National Grassland.

[BarryK123]

Originally Posted by PsyMom

in san diego, it is solid city all around the county until you get way out there... i could drive 1 1/2 north/south and still be in city/burbs... i could drive an hour or so east/west and still be in solid city/burbs... until you reach alpine and then it starts to become more rural in nature...

Either you drive very slowly or you have a different definition of civilization than I do.

I was in SDgo recently. Made a 35 minute drive northeast to Barona casino and that sure looked like rural, middle of nowhere to me...

[Nav]

The commute time mentioned are when you are driving at 2:00am sunday morning. In traffic, especially rush hour, the time is substantially longer. Castlerock to Downtown Denver in normal traffic is over an hour. CastleRock to say Boulder is closer to 2.
When you mentioned "rural" type space, if you are looking for lower priced land, then your only direction to go is East. Pretty much all of the "rural" land between Co springs and Denver carries a "very premuim" price tag. The rolling hills and mesas are sought after by business men ranchers who want a bit of open space and possibly room for horses. There is not much available land unless you want to head 30 miles offof the interstate.

Can you give us a bit more info if you are looking for something, such as what you want and what type of price range you are looking at.

Nav

[treedonkey]

Originally Posted by PsyMom

i grew up in santee when it was still mostly rural and there were cows across the street from me... lived in el cajon and la mesa/san carlos areas... and if i drove the speed limit, it was about twenty minutes to alpine and a half hour to the beach... so, about an hour from the beach to the mountains and there is civilization all along the way...
if i started at the mexico border and drove all the way up the coast to oceanside, it took an hour and forty five minutes driving the speed limit... and again, while there are parks and canyons undeveloped, it was still solid civilization all along the way....

i was just wondering because while i enjoy easy access to remote places, my family is not ready for truly rural living...

I remember when Santee was like that. My family has been there since the 70's. I only lived there for a couple of years though, myself.

It depends on where you live and where you're headed, but there are certainly parts of Denver where you could drive in one direction for over an hour and still be in 'civilization' the whole way. Or, you could head in a different direction and be in the national forest/mountains in 20 minutes. At any rate, if you're comparing DEN to the SoCal of today, you'll find Denver much less dense, but if you're comparing it to the Santee of 1975 then Denver will seem like the planet Coruscant (geeky Star Wars reference).

[80skeys]

There's no solid civilization between Denver and Colorado Springs. It's empty.
There's a little bit of empty space (about 15 minutes) along I-70 between Denver and Golden.

Most of Denver itself is solid. Most of it is a suburbs type of thing, but pretty solid and continuous.

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

San diego county is not wall-to-wall solid city, it's very spread out over hills, mesas, and canyons.

I don't know. I would say San Diego is dense. I would agree with the OP, except maybe 1 hour is exaggerating a little.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by 80skeys

There's no solid civilization between Denver and Colorado Springs. It's empty.
There's a little bit of empty space (about 15 minutes) along I-70 between Denver and Golden.

Most of Denver itself is solid. Most of it is a suburbs type of thing, but pretty solid and continuous.

I really disagree. The southern suburbs go all the way to Highlands Ranch in Douglas County, two counties south of Denver. Then there is a little open land until Castle Rock, then a few miles of open land until you get to Colorado Springs. It really doesn't open up much going south until past Pueblo.

[adavidson78]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I really disagree. The southern suburbs go all the way to Highlands Ranch in Douglas County, two counties south of Denver. Then there is a little open land until Castle Rock, then a few miles of open land until you get to Colorado Springs. It really doesn't open up much going south until past Pueblo.

I agree. I have driven more times than I can count from Trinidad to Ft.Collins. Though it might have been true 10 years ago, as each year has passed, the openness between Colorado Springs and Denver has diminished greatly. Often we would drive at night (from Phoenix to Fort Collins is a 14 hour drive, so we'd try to blast through in one shot) and there would be no lights between Colorado Springs and Denver. But now, the two cities almost seem to merge together with city lights.

[Moonwalkr]

I think you can probably visualize the density for a city using Google Earth and satellite imagery. You'll get to see some of the 'green' space surrounding Denver. Sometimes the pictures can describe better especially if you've never been here before.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by 80skeys

There's no solid civilization between Denver and Colorado Springs. It's empty. . . . .

That would be the Greenland Ranch Open Space between Castle Rock and Monument. Here are some pix of it.